sb. and a. Also tsigan(e, tzigan. [a. F. tzigane, Russian цыганъ, Ruthenian [Ruthenian], Slovenian Cigan, Roumanian țigan, Lithuanian Cigonas, Bulgarian [Bulgarian], Croatian Ciganin; all from Magyar cigány, czigány. The spelling with tz- originated in German; a better Eng. spelling would be tsigan: cf. TSAR.]
A. sb. A Hungarian gipsy.
1856. Morn. Chron., 12 April, 5/4. Some Hungarian soldiers who were there interfered to prevent tziganes or public musicians from playing anything but Magyar airs.
1874. Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 16 Dec., 8/3. In his [V. Sardou’s] revised ‘Uncle Sam,’ he has introducted [sic] as an interlude, the wild music of the Tziganes, a troop of gipses, all natural sons of harmony.
1887. Pall Mall G., 3 March, 5/2. The fiery Magyar, the melancholy Roumanian, the stolid Saxon, the merry, thieving Tzigane.
1898. Tit-Bits, 7 May, 114/1. The finest-looking people of Europe are the Tsiganes, or gipsies of Hungary.
1906. Reader, 24 Nov., 124/1. The humblest peasant, even the nomad Tzigan, greasy, wild, and unkempt in appearance.
B. adj. That is a Tzigane; pertaining to or consisting of Tziganes.
1885. Mabel Collins, Prettiest Woman, vi. The Tzigane musicians were playing most exquisite music.
1888. E. Gerard, Land beyond Forest, II. xxvii. 13. Stripping a young Tzigane girl quite naked.
1912. Daily News, 12 April, 6. The … inevitable tzigane bands, valses, cake-walks.
Hence Tziganologist, Tziganologue (also ts-), one who studies or treats of the Tziganes.
1886. Morning Post, 15 June, 2/2. A modern tsiganologue states that no less than four hundred books have been written on the gypsies, but in all not more than ten which tell us anything new or true about them.
1896. Cheshire Observer, 27 June, 2/4. A grammar of this important dialect of Romanes is now being prepared by my colleague, Mr. John Sampson, one of the soundest tsiganologists of our times.
1909. Cent. Dict., Suppl., Tsiganologist, same as Zinganologist.
1911. 19th Cent., Sept., 550. We owe our knowledge of it [Shelta] to Charles Godfrey Leland, a keen tsiganologue, but more widely known as the author of the Breitmann Ballads.
